Adventures in vegan eats and feats

Bean and zucchini tikka pizza!

Today I slid out the house with an ipod blaring some profane music and managed to wiggle myself up and down the nearby streets. Turns out exercise helps my nausea/pain, which is pretty sweet since I’d been avoiding our usual walks with the idea that I would be rendered catatonic by the road-side. I even managed some jogg-age, which I don’t usually do these days since Man-thing’s knees aren’t really up for it, and also it’s impossible to get into a groove without some music to spur one on. Usually Man-thing and I talk philosophy or judge passing houses, but I just wanted to go a bit wild by my lonesome.

A short while later I got back home and the hunger set in, so naturally I started planning my day around food, one of my favourite activities. After nursing a head of cauliflower in the fridge for a week I decided it was time: a re-visitation of the wonderful, magical cauliflower pizza. It’s a vehicle for great things, simple toppings, and actually makes a ridiculously fine, sturdy pizza base to rival any normal yeasty effort.

I based this on Carrie on Vegan’s pizza base – simply subbing the almond flour for rye, and leaving out the tasty garlic (Man-thing’s rather allergic, which is all levels of sadness). I also halved the recipe and made two personal pizzas, because I wasn’t going to fool around with lady-like portions today. Not when the pizza would look like this.

In a medium bowl, mix together your dry ingredients, then add the cauliflower and water, mixing by hand till you have a ball of dough. It’s rather sticky but in such cases I refuse to dust my hands or the dough with more flour, so get ready for a mess.

This is optional but I usually place my dough in a sandwich bag and keep it in the fridge for 1/2 an hour to become more manageable/workable.

Preheat to 180C, then bake for 15-20 minutes until slightly crispy at the edges. Flip the pizza base, place your toppings atop, then bake for another 15 minutes.

Delish! 😀

Crispy on the outer edges, firm but flavourful in the middle…oh yarr!

Hom nom! Not a salad in sight! (except the delicious steamed beetroot slices, because seriously, need something sane on this plate!) I love my lunch-time salads which take up a huge dinner plate full of beans and spinach and all sorts of nom, but sometimes one has to kick back and look the fridge in the eye and demand satisfaction on a whole other level.

Also, when I told my dad about not feeling well his first question was “does the doctor know how you’re eating?” Sigh. Vegans shouldn’t let anyone know when they’re ill, because everyone always assumes it’s food-related. Stress-induced illness? You must be stressed about being vegan. I’ll bet my blender my delicious, nutrient and veggie-packed lunch outstrips any of his jam and duck paté sandwiches any day! Anyway, I’m getting much better with each passing day – hopefully everything will be back to normal soon enough. Riotous nausea is really the most uncool symptom for a novice hobby-cook to have, especially when there are such delicious fresh ingredients in the house just waiting to be explored!

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Ahoy, I’m Margaux! History teacher and freelance editor; wench to my Man-thing; volunteer at a cat shelter; and handmaiden to our kitsy cats, Gatsby, Freyja and Atlas. This blog is dedicated to vegan food, occasionally overthrown by pictures of foster kittens and other fluffy creatures. I love sharing ideas and recipes, so don't be shy: stop by and say hi!

This looks absoutely amazing!! 😉 I made a cauliflower crust pizza before, but honestly “crust” was quite exaggerated, it was not that crispy at all. This one looks really crispy though and I love the idea about using some flour and chickpeas for the dough too! Must give this a try sometimes! Thanks for sharing 😉

Yay! Thank you 😀 All credit goes to Carrie on Vegan for the basis of the recipe – it’s firm enough that one can easily pick up a slice, which is my measure of success in homemade pizza. It also requires so much less flour than most recipes, which means one can eat double 😉

I’m going to try it next time with some broccoli and see if that works – I find that keeping the dough in the fridge for a while helps to bind it, so the change in texture from cauliflower to broccoli shouldn’t make such a different in this case. Let me know how your pizza turns out!

Thank you! I was so happy to discover a cauliflower-crust pizza without cheese or a thousand other extra bits 😀 Your recipes are in so inspiring as is – I’m still trying to figure out how to create a situation to make your no-bake PB&J pie – alas I need lots of people all in one spot so that I don’t sit with the whole thing by myself! It would be equal parts dangerous and delicious, methinks 😉